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by tollofthebells



Series: Art Trade and Gift Fics [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Red Templars (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-07 00:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18227519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollofthebells/pseuds/tollofthebells
Summary: A battle against red templars in the Emerald Graves leads to a close call for Darva Lavellan and Dorian.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [goblin_deity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblin_deity/gifts).



> A prize fic from my most recent tumblr giveaway!

It's red templars again. It seems, and especially so in the Emerald Graves, that there are _always_ more of them. Always. Vivienne finds them pitiful, making quick work of any she comes across, commenting here and there on what they _could have been_ or on templars she's known in the past, bringing little solace to Darva, though he makes no comment back. Cassandra takes on each with a sense of duty but also—which others perhaps might not notice—a sense of somberness. Regret. Silence. She's seen much and known many templars in her past and any of these might have been a friend, now corrupted and changed as much as her fellow Seekers had been, but still she fights on valiantly and without objection, and for that, Darva respects her silence. 

But Dorian. 

To Dorian, red templars are a _game_. 

He knows his love too well; it's not humorous and it's not a joke and if he makes it so it's only to mask his frustration, his unfamiliarity. The red templars aren't a threat he'd known in Tevinter; for that matter, _templars_ aren't a threat he'd know in Tevinter and yet here they are in the Emerald Graves, a land crawling with Samson's men and a battle around every corner. Give Dorian the Venatori any day and he could map his way through battling them with his eyes closed. Red templars are something else entirely. 

It's on the return journey to Skyhold—nearly out of the Emerald Graves entirely, just on the northeast border of the Frostbacks—that their worst fight occurs, because _of course_ , Darva thinks with a laugh, _these things always happen just on your way out_. It's a larger unit than what they usually encounter—three foot soldiers, a lieutenant, and two behemoths, all towering and massive and bursting with crimson and ruby and sharp edges all over. 

They fall into their usual formation wordlessly—Cassandra charging in at the front, Darva dashing in from behind, Dorian and Vivienne in support. The footsoldiers are simple, a quick _slash_ each to the backs of their legs, a blade to their throats and Darva's finished off all three just as Cassandra takes down the lieutenant with a final sweep of her sword. "Help Dorian!" she shouts hoarsely, wiping blood from her forehead and turning toward the behemoth making its way to Vivienne. 

_Dorian_. 

Darva whips around, tightens his grips on his knives, eyes searching the thick woods and _Creators_ , he thinks when he finally spots him. _Creators, he's too far_ , small in the distance but bursting with red firelight and deep greens and purples of necromancy spells and the behemoth has already reached him; he can't tell how long he's been battling it on his own but his feet scramble, trip, carry him as quickly as they can to the thick of the fight and Dorian's _mocking_ it, _taunting_ it; _don't_ , Darva thinks, he wants to shout it out loud but his lungs beg for air and he can't find his voice, he's never one to shy from Dorian's jeers and teasing but _his arrogance will get him into trouble one day_ , he worries, cursing himself for the very thought and wishing a silent prayer to the Creators that it won't be so. 

_He's really tired it out, actually,_ Darva observes when at last he arrives to the scene. 

"Is that the best you've got?" Dorian sneers at the behemoth, twirling his staff with one hand and motioning it to come closer with another. 

_Don't_. 

The monstrous creature groans, swinging it's lyrium-encrusted arms one after the other at Dorian and it's all Darva can do to hurl a knife at it, offer some sort of distraction, but he's too late. Dorian's gone too far this time. The red lyrium fist knocks him off his feet, knocks the staff from his hand as he falls. 

" _No_!" Darva shouts, jumping, _leaping_ into the air, onto the behemoth, digging his remaining dagger into its rock-like torso and dragging the blade as he slides down, down, taking the beast down with him. 

He doesn't wait to make sure it's dead, doesn't need to; he's bought himself time to see to Dorian and that's what matters and he dashes over the fallen creature, over stumps and roots and branches until he reaches his love, pulling him up carefully as he coughs the air back into his lungs. 

He's okay. 

And he's _smiling_. 

Darva could strangle him for it if it weren't for the matching grin he finds himself bearing, overcome with relief and welling with happiness as he squeezes his hand once, twice, _just so you know_. 

"Gave you a bit of a scare there, did I, amatus?" Dorian asks him, his mustache twitching upwards, laughter in his eyes as he brushes the earth and leaves off the back of his robes. 

"Don't start," Darva chuckles, trying and quite likely failing to hide the shaking in his voice as he looks him over for any signs of injury. A small cut to the arm—nothing more, not this time, to his relief, and nothing they can't tend to right now. Approaching voices tell him Vivienne and Cassandra have emerged victorious from their battle as well, and Darva exhales long, deep, before removing his pack and extracting a bandage and an elfroot poultice. 

"It's nothing, really," Dorian says nonchalantly as Cassandra and Vivienne rejoin them, in spite of his wince when Darva presses the poultice into the wound. 

_But it could've been worse._

"Yeah," he says. "Nothing." 

When Dorian's wound is clean and bandaged and he's back on his feet, they're on the way back to Skyhold again, purposeful and swift, Cassandra and Vivienne taking the lead and Dorian and Darva just behind, side by side, and a little closer than before. 


End file.
